Evan Greebel
Evan Greebel
Head shot of Evan Greebel
Evan Louis Greebel is a convicted felon and lawyer residing in New York City. He was previously a Partner at Kaye Scholer LLP and Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. In August 2018 Greebel was sentenced to 18 months in prison for aiding in Martin Shkreli in defrauding Retrophin of $11 million while acting as outside counsel for the company.
Early Life & Education
Evan Greebel born in Scarsdale, New York to parents Barbara and Charles Greebel. Charles Greebel worked as a lawyer in Tarrytown, New York.
Greebel earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan in 1995 and his Juris Doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1998. He was later admitted to the New York State Bar Association and the New Jersey State Bar Association.
Personal Life
Evan Greebel married his wife Jodi Citrin, who took on his last name, in a Jewish wedding ceremony at the Temple Israel of Lawrence in Lawrence, New York on July 14, 2007. In May 2010, Jodi Greebel's father Niles Citrin, one of the founding partners in the accounting firm Citrin Cooperman, helped buy the couple a $1.55 million condo at 360 East 72nd Street in the Upper East Side.
Career
Evan Greebel was a Partner at the law firm, Kaye Scholer LLP in New York City from June 2015 to March 2016. He specialized in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and securities law. Greebel also represented clients in the cryptocurrency industry. In 2016 he was fired from the firm after being arrested for aiding in the fraud schemes of Martin Shkreli against the pharmaceutical company, Retrophin while working at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP.
Greebel was previously a Corporate and Securities Partner in the New York City office of the Chicago based law firm, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. He worked for the firm from September 2002 to June 2015. In 2015 he worked as outside counsel for Retrophin. In 2013, he became part of the team that represented Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss in their effort to create a Bitcoin based Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) called the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust.
Greebel began his career as an Associate Lawyer at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP a New York City based law firm. He worked at the firm from 1998-2002.
Criminal History
Photo of Evan Greebel outside of court
Former Hedge Fund Manager Martin Shkreli And Attorney Indicted In Multimillion Dollar Fraud Scheme
On Friday August 17, 2018 Evan Greebel was sentenced to 18 months in prison for aiding in Martin Shkreli in defrauding Retrophin of $11 million while acting as the outside counsel for the company. He was sentenced by District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn.
Judge Matsumoto rejected Evan Greebel’s defense that he fell victim to “master manipulator” Martin Shkreli, a high-profile former pharmaceutical executive that once controlled a former client.
“He is not reckless, he was not naive, he was not inexperienced,” Judge Matsumoto said.
“He was not led astray by a young, brash CEO.”
Greebel was practicing as a Partner at Kaye Scholer at the time of his arrest in December 2015.
He was mostly expressionless during the hearing and looking at the table in front of him, though while reading a brief written statement to the court prior to the sentence, he removed his glasses and wiped his eyes.
"I will regret every day of my life the day that I met Martin Shkreli," Greebel told the judge.
Greebel was convicted in December 2017 of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud when representing Retrophin; he received an 18-month sentence on each count, to run concurrently, and was ordered to pay more than $10.4 million in restitution to Retrophin and forfeit $116,462.
Martin Shkreli was found guilty of securities fraud in a separate trial in 2017 and was subsequently sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the fraud scheme.
Federal prosecutors said Shkreli and Greebel schemed to defraud Retrophin by using its assets to pay off Shkreli’s debts to investors in hedge funds he created, MSMB Healthcare and MSMB Capital, through sham settlement and consulting agreements.
Greebel was also accused of working with Shkreli and others to manipulate the stock price and trading volume of Retrophin’s stock.
Greebel’s lawyers asked the judge to impose no jail time, arguing that probation was sufficient as he had already lost his law license and a prison sentence would harm his wife and children.
His legal team also claimed that Greebel played a “minor” role in the conspiracies.
In arguments prior to the sentencing, Mylan Denerstein, a Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner and member of Greebel’s defense team, argued that he was punished by the fact that he will likely be disbarred due to his felony convictions.
Gibson Dunn partner Reed Brodsky, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan who joined the firm five years ago, led the defense team for Greebel, who intends to appeal.
Prosecutors had urged a five-year prison sentence, contending that Greebel “embraced” his relationship with Shkreli and sought to profit from it by earning more at his law firms through his relationship with Shkreli.
Prosecutors also claimed that Greebel abused his role as Retrophin’s outside lawyer to gain board members’ trust.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alixandra Smith said Friday that the government recommended the sentence to send a message to the legal community about the consequences for an attorney who abuses their position and to “protect the public from corrupt lawyers.”
“The legal community is watching this case very closely,” said Smith, a former associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Jenner & Block.
“Leniency would send the wrong message.”
In a strongly worded statement, Richard Donoghue, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said that Greebel’s sentence “reinforces our message that attorneys who facilitate crimes will be held accountable for their actions.”
“Evan Greebel leveraged his legal training and the trust placed in him by Retrophin’s board of directors to commit serious crimes, including the theft of millions of dollars in cash and stock from the very company he was hired to represent.
In doing so, Greebel broke the law and violated the ethical duties he owed to his client,” Donoghue said.
In a letter to Matsumoto just two days before his sentencing, Greebel said he wanted to publicly apologize to his family, friends, former colleagues and clients.
“I can never repay the support and loyalty that each of them have shown me during this time.
I am as humbled and grateful for it as I am ashamed and embarrassed to stand before them and the court as a convicted man,” Greebel wrote.
“From the beginning of this case, it has sickened me that anyone would believe that I would act or conspire to harm a client in order to benefit either myself or anyone else.
I am devastated and ashamed by my criminal conviction and this is a burden that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
Going forward, Greebel said he was working with others in launching an in-patient drug rehabilitation facility in the Catskills after seeing that many facilities are located in the West and southwestern regions of the United States. He said the new facility will be open by summer or fall 2019. “I am hopeful that I will be able to begin my future sooner rather than later,” Greebel said.
Less than a week before his sentencing, Judge Matsumoto, in a 177-page decision, denied Greebel’s request for an acquittal or to order a new trial.
“The jury reasonably concluded that Mr. Greebel conspired with Mr. Shkreli and [Retrophin CFO Marc Panoff] to commit wire fraud … by causing Retrophin to enter into the settlement and consulting agreements, with the specific intent of defrauding Retrophin of shares and funds in order to pay off and silence” hedge fund investors and “to protect Mr. Shkreli,” Judge Matsumoto wrote.